Myth of the West

[LBernier at tribune.com]

     Andrew Sez:
     
     Uh, forgive me for appearing snobby but `the mythology of the Pioneer 
     and the West' - isn't that something DisneyCo invented? Same as all 
     those neatly reconstructed Puritan villages in the East. None of this 
     is real. In Britain our history has been allowed to accumulate dirt, 
     intermingle across the ages, incorporate the practicalities of 
     everyday living and has been so for centuries. In the US what has been 
     preserved is not part of a living, organic tradition. It is dead, 
     pickled, preserved in aspic (or, in the more tacky versions, in 
     plastic). In fact preserved is the wrong word because a lot of it has 
     had to be reconstructed.
     
No, no, no.  Disney only CO-OPTED these myths and has done some very evil 
things, such as Pocahontas as a buxom tree-hugging, nature-communing 
anime-babe, BUT, this does not mean that the real story of the west is 
invalid.  What Hollywood portrays and what is reality are gulfs apart.  
Wouldn't it be sad if what I knew about Scottish history came from watching 
Rob Roy and Braveheart?  But, lots of people will accept that as canon, so 
does that mean its been recreated?  No, because intelligent people will 
understand that its a MOVIE.  And its fiction.  
     
Pickled and preserved, eh? Well, like the Roman Empire, we seem to be 
decaying, but hey, ever been to the Vatican museum?  Let's talk plastic, my 
friend!  The US has no lock on reproducing its icons and selling them for 
filthy lucre.  Or on co-option.
     
     
   > There's the puritan, the scandinavian, the african,  the chinese, the 
   > irish, pushing onwards, pushing westward,  building railroads, 
   > building towns, building industry.  There are shameful things:  
   > slavery, native americans, civil rights, and there are beautiful 
   > things:  the super highway, the skyscraper, fields of corn in July in 
   > Indiana.
     
     Yes, there are these things and they are mostly external, fragmented, 
     special interests. They are not really built into US life, part of a 
     shared community. They have not dominated US experience in the way 
     that tradition has *over-determined* European day-to-day
     existence. That is why the Disney version can exist and why it seems 
     so phoney to us Europeans. 
     
Since when is Scotland in Europe? :-)  Over-determined how?  You're not 
free to choose?
     
     There is nothing to `correct' DisneyCo's mythmaking because there is 
     no real community from which such myths can be drawn. 
     
But Disney draws their material from something.  They don't just make it 
up.  They may turn it into something grotesque, but it's based on a fact.
     
     Of course, I'm not arguing that this is all bad or good on either side 
     here either. Here in Britain we are subject to all sorts of stupid 
     myths about our tradition - Little Englanders despising Johnny 
     Foreigner, Scots Nationalists wanting `our oil' back from the colonial 
     English etc. The real point is that the notion of community and how it 
     is maintained, or rather (re-)constructed, is one of the keys to what 
     `Vineland' is about.
     
True - interestingly, American culture could be said to be about this very 
ability to re-construct yourself, if you wish.  Which, in extreme form, as 
it has been since the 60's and 70's, is ultimately detrimental to the 
community, since community is simply a sense that you have a place in 
society, where you are responsible for others, and they are responsible for 
you, be that within an ethnic group, a church, a commune, or a small rural 
town.  That kind of responsibility breeds conformity, not in a negative 
sense, but as a sort of cohesion to some central ideal or value.  What we 
have is conformity enforced by fascism - either be like me, or f*** off.  
There's no place for people Zoyd anymore.

Jean.
      
     


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Myth of the West
Author:  andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk (Andrew Dinn) at Internet_tco
Date:    5/22/96 12:09 PM


Ted Samsel writes:
     
> Hold on there buckaroo,
>    The myth of the 'Merkin West started long before Disney. Check out
> the Buntline dime novels, James Fenimore Cooper, Zane Grey, Owen Wister, 
> Frederick Jackson Turner........
     
Oh yes, but for the bulk of the present generation it has had to be 
*reinvented*. I think that's one of Vineland's points.
     
> (and for the Germans in this group, Karl "Shatterhand" May.)
     
>    Not to mention land and migration promoters...like the foax who
> brought you the Donner Party. Now that would be a good western story 
> for TRP to work on..... (;-)
     
     
Andrew Dinn
-----------
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To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.